August Card Rankings | Fractured Frontier

Welcome to Earth-383! There are familiar faces alongside new characters and seemingly everything comes with a twist or a wrinkle! Are the most anticipated cards actually the best ones? Are you in the mood for a tempo 3-Cost stats card or a complicated 5-Cost build-around? Lauren and Scott got together to rank all of the new cards! Agree with us? Found something we missed? Come join the conversation in the Discord server!

August New Card Schedule

The Cards

Fourth Location Card Rankings!

In their initial rankings, Scott and Lauren go off the cuff and give their immediate thoughts on the new cards. This is a tricky month, so expect quite a few shifts from the beginning of the video conversation to our final thoughts here in the article!

Lauren's Rankings

1. Thanos
2. Hellcow
3. Jane Foster
4. Psylocke
5. Red Wolf
6. Red Hulk
7. Doctor Octopus
8. Death

Further Thoughts

Thanos

He's great, but people are overestimating how great. He joins the handful of 5-Costs that are semi-generically good (e.g., Iron Man, Fisk, Thing FS). Like those, Thanos asks for some deckbuilding considerations. He has his own niche (wanting to play on curve) and the juice is worth the squeeze.

Hellcow

One of three 3-Cost stat sticks this season (it's beyond me why they've done this). She has the lowest floor and highest ceiling of the bunch – but you have a lot of control of where she lands in that spectrum. Most importantly, she's the only one that's not just a stat stick. She cleans up your cards with Negative Power. That seems pretty cool for cleaning up Hoods and Voids.

Jane Foster

She has so much competition as a 3-Cost stat stick. Her floor is decent and her ceiling is great. Her drawbacks are smaller and less visible than the others – she makes it hard to play Shadow King and sometimes she'll lack targets. Her reliable Power and nearly unique trait of going wide (see Ironheart) means she'll find homes, even if they're pretty niche.

Psylocke

She has so much competition as a 3-Cost Ramp card. You must play her for her On Reveal – the Quickdraw is too unreliable to build around. It is a significant downside that she only discounts what's already in your hand. She'll never be your first choice, but you might use her as backup for Luna, Superior Spider-Man, or Electro.

Red Wolf

This card has slightly grown on me as I've realized he's pretty unique as a 2-Cost On Reveal that buffs himself. The difference between 2-Cost and 3-Cost is significant. His cost makes him better than Nakia (a low bar), even without his Quickdraw. His Quickdraw is pretty good, but not good enough to run Doc Ock. You'll get it more often because he's the cheapest Quickdraw (on the other hand, it doesn't matter if you get it on Turn 6). He's playable, but you'll almost always want something else instead.

Red Hulk

He has so much competition as a 3-Cost stat stick. His floor is bad and his ceiling is great. It's much harder to hit his ceiling than Jane's. He stands out for being playable whenever you draw him, but that's not enough to justify running him over his plentiful competition.

Doctor Octopus

None of the Quickdraws are good enough to run this. The way he manipulates your cards is interesting for aiming cards like Wingbeat, Moon Girl, Chavez, and Iron Lad. Costing a draw is a massive downside, so you better do something cool with that manipulation and +3. Might be important someday when a great Quickdraw comes along.

Death

Don't get me wrong, this card is cool as hell. I want more cards that do things besides directly affecting Power. Destroy Hela is a losing proposition from the get-go because you (almost always) have to pay for cards before you destroy them. That limits both the strength and quantity of what you can send to the graveyard before playing Death.

Scott's Rankings

1. Thanos
2. Red Hulk
3. Jane Foster
4. Hellcow
5. Psylocke
6. Death
7. Doctor Octopus
8. Red Wolf

Further Thoughts

Thanos

After spending a lot of time building and theory-crafting with Thanos, I do think there are some major flaws here. Fully loading all of the Shots will be extremely difficult, unless you strictly build toward it. Still, there is a reasonably high ceiling here, despite low shenanigans potential.

Red Hulk

The more I think about this card, the more I think it's the one most likely to fight its way into the existing metagame. Its a big card that can enable Wilson Fisk and can have some surprising additional upside when drawn late. It will make a great redundant option in the 3-Cost spot.

Jane Foster

Reliable Power that can be multiplied by the Quickdraw or just finding a way to repeat the On Reveal. If the numbers are good enough on this, it's just barely though, and spreading wide is generally less desirable than targeted Power.

Hellcow

One of the more unique mechanics alongside Thanos and Death, this card can account for some decent stats. I'm not entirely sure if this card will be used in Scorpion Affliction decks, or in some kind of clog/anti-clog package, but it has clear uses.

Psylocke

The two parts of the card are totally at odds with itself. If you're building towards ramp, you don't care if you're discounting your whole hand, and if you're building with the Quickdraw in mind, you'll be disappointed quite often. So why isn't this card lower? I actually think she works really well with the Season Pass card and was probably built with Thanos Fractured Frontier in mind. She's valuable in the kinds of decks that are happy for either side of her ability, but that's not many decks.

Death

The cost and steps are steep on this one. I am pretty excited to try Misery/Sage-type stuff with her and that set of interactions look to be pretty appealing with her. I think there will be a deck with her, but she's narrow and new build-arounds always have major flop potential (but huge success potential if they work out!).

Doctor Octopus

This card doesn't seem especially useful now – Psylocke, Red Wolf, and Jane Foster don't seem nearly good enough to go though the steps – but I do think it will have uses and you'll want it in your collection. Will this be valuable to help your Thanos Fractured Frontier load enough shots?

Red Wolf

Even when you get it's Quickdraw off (which you often won't!), it's still not all that powerful. It seems underpowered for how inconsistent it will be. Could definitely use a quick buff, and I'd prefer that buff come in the Quickdraw to really lean into the mechanic and give a home for a Doctor Octopus/Red Wolf package.

That's it for this month! Come back next month for our Zombies vs. Vampires rankings! If you have or need a sweet deck for the new cards, be sure to keep an eye on the SnapDecks Twitter and Bluesky accounts!